I'm so glad you're here! "The Art of Life" is where I share my journey as an artist & Momma.
It's a place where I hope to encourage other women that they are artists too. In this small little space I seek to share, document, and be reminded of God's wonderful grace, all around us.
....And I would be so happy to have you journey alongside me!
So grab a cup of coffee and linger for a while. I hope you leave feeling refreshed.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Creativity in Education

~~My brother and sister are both artists. A love of art runs in the family. I found this picture of some of my sister's beautiful pottery pieces and thought I would share. She's actually in her first year as a highschool art educator and we're all pretty proud of her.~~As kids our parents encouraged each of us in our art. I'm so thankful for parents who valued creativity.I had seen a link to this talk by Sir Ken Robinson before but didn't take the time to watch it until yesterday. I'm soglad I did! It's called "Do Schools Kill Creativity" and I highly encourage you to listen. As a parent, it's really a sad and scary thought to me. Sierra is just starting school and at this age kids are still allowed to be creative and mix fun into learning. I love walking down the halls and seeing all the fun projects and crafts they've created. Her classroom is all about exploratory learning. It's wonderful. But I know that as she gets older that will change.~~Some highlights from Sir Robinson's speech:***"Kids will take a chance. If they don't know, they'll have a go. They're not frightened of being wrong. Now I don't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original."***"I believe this passionately, that we don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it, or rather we're educated out of it."***Pablo Picasso once said, "Every child is born an artist. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up."

~~I know, maybe this is a bit deep for a Wednesday afternoon, lol, but living a creative life and passing that on to my children is something that I'm passionate about. You don't have to be an artist, singer, poet, etc, to benefit from creativity. It's something that we all need. It's the way that God created us. After all, He is the Master Artist.

I am also passionate about exposing my little girl to creative experiences. It is vital.

Before having Savanna I taught in various high schools for ten years. In some of the schools I taught in I was concerned about the fact that for student's to be awarded an "A" they had to conform to a very strict set of criteria. I understand criteria need to be met, but I am a big believer in giving adolescents choice and flexibility, so that they can still meet prescribed conditions, but giving them the flexibility to do so while thinking outside the box.

There are so many excellent teachers and schools that subscribe to this philosophy and do try to cater to the individual. Schools that do offer student's choice and hence allow for that creativity to flourish.

Giving children the chance to be creative is becoming more and more prevalent in our education system and I am so happy to see this.

It is a great talk, this made the rounds among homeschoolers a while back and just gives us yet another reason to be happy about our choice. I'm sure your creative spirit will flourish in your girls. How could it not?

Wow, incredibly inspiring talk! As a homeschool mom I can see exactly what he is talking about. If something comes up, the first thing shoved aside is art, p.e. or "extra-curricular" activities! But without exception, Breanna would chose those things to do first every day if given the choice. I may need to make more time in her day for those things that interest her the most! I am also a perfection freak! I have to remind myself and my little ones that getting an answer wrong is not the worse thing to happen, but rather being so afraid of getting the wrong answer that you don't try at all! I know my fear of messing up has kept me from doing things and I don't want to pass that on. Thanks for sharing!~Angela